Don't you want to come to the party?

People in my community recently held three birthday celebrations for the other volunteer in my office.  I went to the first party, but was at a meeting out of town for #2.  I received the invitation for party #3 from the Belgian intern in our office the morning of the party but had awoken the night before with a sore throat that only got worse as the day wore on.

I told one of the party organizers ASAP that I wouldn’t be able to make it because I wasn’t feeling well and a) wanted to rest to hopefully keep from getting a full blown cold, and b) I didn’t want to spread my germs around to all the party goers.  I verbally told two of my coworkers that I wasn't going and why, and then responded to a text message from a third coworker to say that I wasn’t going to make it.  And then my boss showed up at my apartment door asking if I was upset and didn’t I want to go to the party?  I explained that I was under the weather and sweating profusely despite having just taken a shower, so I was thinking it was better that I stay home, but I started to worry that I was making some kind of huge social faux pas.  Then I started to worry that there was something really strong in the throat lozenges I'd been sucking all day because really, why were people so concerned about me not attending this party?  

These are like wasps nests and they're everywhere. What's all the buzzzzzz about this party people? 

I remember during training that staff told us to go to everything we were invited to because it was important for integration.  Then we talked to some volunteers who were ending their 2-year service and they said “look, go to like 75% of the things you’re invited to but take time for yourself whenever you need it; you’re going to be exhausted.”  I am exhausted as my weeks have started to rapidly fill up with long meetings, more social interactions in Spanish and long days of travel.  I would have had a great time at the party and I was bummed to miss out on delicious food and drink, but when I’m sick I just want to gargle warm salt water in the comfort of my own home and lay on my couch.

It's the dry season here. Well, for rain, not for parties. 

My cell phone has no way to record or replay a voice mail so when people want to reach you they will literally call you over and over and over again.  After my boss visited, I saw that he had called 3 times while I was in the shower.  The other night someone called me at 9 PM and I did not answer.  It may be grandma-like, but after an 11-hour work day, I was ready for bed and definitely not up for a call in Spanish.  I’m close enough to the millennial generation to say that in this digital age, if you really need to reach me, you can send me a What’s App or text message.  The person called three times in a row about 15 seconds apart each time.  In the US, we screen calls all day long, but here, the idea that you could hear your phone ringing and not want to pick it up (or that you would have it on silent all the time like I do) is not easily understood. 

Lovely vista (without cell phone reception).  

Despite all of the invitations, I stayed home and rested and watched the last available episode of Narcos on Netflix.  If you want to learn some Spanish that is in no way appropriate for the office, I strongly recommend Narcos.  The next morning, one of my coworkers continued to give me a hard time (in a nice way) about not coming to the party, asking "why Autumn, why didn't you come to the party? A cold is nothing. You just need to drink some raicilla with honey and lemon - that's the solution to all your problems."  If you get invited to a party that you're not up for attending, well, I really don't know what to tell you.  Explain to everyone that you'd love to attend, but you just aren't feeling well. And then be prepared to explain that again.  And try not to feel too guilty.

I talk English really good

I’ve never had more fun or felt more alive than I have this past year in Mexico, but I’ve also never felt more self-aware, or more uncomfortable and ungrounded in certain aspects.  It’s definitely been a humbling experience to learn how to operate in a constant state of heightened stress in a new culture and language, and to never come across as eloquently as you would like (or to feel as smart as you’re pretty sure you used to be).  

For example, last week my coworker Fabricio asked me “do you know what Caldo Suflicacico is?”  I did create a brochure for another coworker on this topic last summer, but all I could say was “yeah…. it’s a thing. I have a brochure on that.”  He said “don’t worry about it” – and then he went into the main room and announced to the office: “Autumn doesn’t know what Caldo Suflicalcico is,” which made everyone bust out laughing. 

 I love all the brightly colored houses.

I'm not so sure it's great to have such a brightly colored green pond. 

Also, because I know you’re dying to know:  Caldo Sulfocalcico is used to treat diseases in crops caused by fungi (without using agrochemicals), to cultivate fruit trees and control other pests, like mites. 

While my lack of knowledge is hilarious, it’s also a prime example of how much harder it is to retain and explain things in another language.  If I designed a brochure for you in English, chances are I could tell you a little something about it several months later.  In this case, the scientific terms in Spanish were not familiar to me, and although I did translate them when creating that brochure last year, that knowledge has clearly faded.  FYI – I’m not always super smooth in English these days either.  I recently struggled to remember how to say "Seattle" in English, and when I was home at Christmas, I told my brother two times that “I talk English really good.” I wish I could say I was joking, but both times it took me a minute to process that something was wrong.  

I kind of love this pig stencil I pass every morning (which has nothing at all to do with the content of this post).

The other day my boss asked me to help with a grant application to reduce deforestation through enhanced institutional partnerships and funding for sustainable livestock practices.  He asked me to help with both translation and content review.  I sent him some notes and he said “these suggestions look great! Please add them to the application.”  It felt a little bit like Christmas and I realized that was because a) he asked me to provide input on content, and b) I received positive feedback.  

My boss has told me how much he thinks my Spanish has improved, which I definitely appreciate, but I haven’t heard people receive much in the way of praise or kudos for a job well-done this past year.  I mean, I've seen What's App messages with the "thumbs up" icon, but that's not really the same.  My last three bosses in the US were great at giving feedback and celebrating the successes of their employees, and I always felt like a high-performing, valuable (and valued) employee.  It turns out that I kind of need that feedback – and in fact depend on it – to help me define my worth as an employee.  It's taken me awhile to realize that I was missing that, and that loss has had me a little off-kilter.  When a big part of your identity is wrapped into being a super productive, invaluable employee (even if that identity is only in your head ;), and you find yourself without a feedback loop to reinforce that image, well, it's really weird and unsettling. To counterbalance that weirdness, I'm listening to this new Ryan Adams album all the time because it's a fitting soundtrack for a super self-aware, slightly uncomfortable and ungrounded period (and it's really awesome). 

Old soda bottles used by a local teacher to make a plant border. 

Hanging with some local students while they learn about soil health from Ing. Poli. 

A friend recently asked me why I don't write a lot about my work in my blog and it's because most of my work is in an office.  Unlike the environmental education volunteers, I don't have a class of students that I'm working with every day and I'm not creating cool things like benches made from empty plastic bottles.  Don't get me wrong, the project our office is leading is super cool with the potential to have a big impact for sustainable land management practices on a national level.  It's just that I'm currently working on getting all of the content for our website developed, teaching weekly English classes, assisting with organizational development and strategic planning for community groups, co-developing an environmental education plan for local primary schools, assisting with the Peregrino Sustentable committee activities, tagging along to community workshops to absorb information and take photos, and helping with anything else as needed.  It's all good work but not exactly riveting reading material at this point.  

I figure you'd rather hear about super funny or good things that happen to me, like when my English class student Sonia offered me a ride home the other night and then said, hey, do you want to stop for tacos? And so we ate tacos, and tostadas with grilled onions, and drank Sprite, and talked about the week.  And I formulated a plan to visit and review every taco stand in town, purely for your reading pleasure in the future.  Or when my neighbor Elena messaged me to ask if I wanted to visit and then gave me tea, toast with jam and all kinds of insight into local relationships.  She let me chat with her in English, and offered to help me find someone to talk with every week as a sort of Spanish teacher.  A few days later she invited me on a walk in the countryside where we saw bulls fighting and enjoyed the year's most perfect weather as the sun began to set.

View during a tasty lunch eating machaca con juego. 

Or when Ing. Poli took us to eat lunch with a lovely señora who served machaca con juego with fresh tortillas and avocados.  And then we got back to our office to find that they had ordered a ton of pizza, and thus, we had to eat some pizza too.  In other words, I'm pretty sure you'd rather hear about all the different types of food that I eat and learn what "el mal del puerco" means and why it's important, right?  

The Struggle is Real

So you think you want to be a Peace Corps volunteer.... well you totally should do it (cause it's super awesome) but make sure you do your research ahead of time so you know what you're getting into.  Before I left for Mexico, I scoured volunteer blogs, looking for some glimpse of my future life.  I’ve met some of the Mexico volunteers whose blogs I read stateside, which was pretty cool.  Perhaps one of my posts will help prepare some future volunteer and I'll get to meet them one day too!  Mexico is a beautiful country and the slower pace of life has been a welcome reprieve for me.  That said, there are some struggles that you should be aware of should you desire a life as a volunteer.

Being a volunteer is loads of fun with friends like these! 

Dealing with Free Time:  This is not the case for every volunteer – and it's starting to change for me – but I have a lot of free time.  You wouldn’t think that a lot of free time could be a struggle, but I’m continually reminding myself to reframe what could be seen as boredom as a great opportunity to relax and learn new things.  I try to make good use of my free time: I read books, I watch movies, I color in my coloring book, I go on walks in circles around town, I talk to people, I embroider tortilla towels, I write, I make music playlists, I cook, I clean, I send long emails that people in the US really don't have time to respond to, I sit in the central square and stare at things, I calculate the cost to visit from the US and then send that information to people back home, I chat with people I know on the street, and I make really important Pinterest boards about things that have no bearing on my current life, like “cool household pottery.”  

I live in a small town with no car and no amenities like shopping centers, movie theaters, or long distance hiking trails, so I walk through the same stores on a regular basis “window shopping” which does not appear to be a common activity in my town as the sales people are always attached to my hip asking what they can help me find.  I always explain that although I don’t want to buy their dining set, I am excited to see if they have anything new.  On a recent visit to our local housing goods store, I saw that a room that used to be filled with bed pillows was now filled with baby play pens. So, as you can see, these store tours can yield exciting results.

Coloring projects are a great way to utilize free time (and be hip like your friends in the US).  

When you have time to wander on a regular basis you find things like Target brand hook rails for sale in your local grocery store. 

I’m sure my friends with kids are thinking “really Autumn? You’re complaining about too much free time?!”  I know it's a privilege to say such a thing, but, none the less, my struggle is real.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE having free time.  It’s just that free time without a lot of money, access to long hiking trails or any destinations that can be accessed without a minimum 3-hour bus trip – each-way – is a type of free time that I’m still adjusting to.  Sometimes I do meaningful things with that time – like study Spanish or visit my host family – and other times I find myself watching all the Twilight movies again.  I mean just because I have them.  Not because I like want to.  That would just be silly…..

Finding a Project: For me, the hardest part of being a volunteer is trying to figure out what to do at “work.”  Peace Corps has a diagram that shows the following: host country priorities, Peace Corps priorities and your skill set.  The idea is to identify a project at your site that incorporates all three and falls into the mythical sweet spot.  You do receive a job description when you arrive but that's a really rough concept of needs identified a long time ago, which may or may not have any bearing on your life now.  

I work in a great office with great people on a super interesting project, but navigating the role of a “volunteer” is still difficult.  Acting as a volunteer is not anything at all like stepping into a new job back in the states (and you should know that if you are a potential mid-career volunteer like me).  My organization is developing a new sustainable land management tool that is being tried for the first time in Mexico.  Unlike other sites, they have not had a litany of volunteers in the past and they did not have a pre-developed role or specific job for me to step into.  The project area is quite large, with several cities involved, so there’s no small, core community for me to work with.  This past month things have really started to come together, and although I may never lead a big community project, I'm starting to support a lot of initiatives and have some clearly defined duties and objectives, and that qualifies as awesome.     

My super awesome office crew. 

Learning New Modes of Communication: It’s amazing to see how much of a new language you can learn via immersion.  That said, I still don’t understand everything I hear and I can’t say everything I want to.  I'm not going to lie to you – it's frustrating.  After years of striving for a paperless office, I’ve learned it’s best to print out materials for others to review, and to follow-up on items in person every couple of days.  It’s also best to schedule a group meeting in place of asking people to review and respond to things electronically.  My office loves What’s App, which is our primary mode of communication, and I’m pretty much the only one who ever emails anything.  This means my introvert style of emailing for the majority of (or really any) communications is a no-go here.

Standing Out: After 8 months at site, I suddenly seem to be very recognizable and the fact that I'm from the US has become a more active conversation starter.  A coworker used a white truck to help me move some furniture into my apartment, and a week later a woman pounded on my door at the crack of dawn asking me to move a truck that was blocking her driveway.  I explained that I didn’t have a truck, but then saw that it was white and realized that not only did the neighbors see what vehicle was used to move me in, they knew exactly where I lived.  People are now frequently stopping me in the street to ask me where I’m from and why I’m here (and frequently, why I moved to a new house, even if I’m meeting them for the first time and haven’t said anything about moving).  I don’t know if it’s because I hit some magical mark for the passing of time to be seen as permanent, or because I’m walking around town more, but I’m getting a lot of sidewalk conversations.

For example, an older woman stopped me as I was passing her on the sidewalk to ask me where I was going, where did I live, and what was I doing here (in a nice, non-interrogatory way).  She asked me about the recent US election and was so happy to hear that I was here to learn about her language and culture and share that information with people in the US. 

 It's hard to believe that I stand out, eh? 

When another friend from the US came to visit, the number of street conversations increased exponentially. 

A few days later, another woman yelled at me from the other side of the street “Hello!  It’s so good to see you. How are you?” I responded and crossed the street thinking, well, maybe I know her.  Nope.  Once I got there she had lots of questions and things to talk about.  Was I from the US? What was I doing here?  How much did I get paid?  Who paid me?  Did I have a boyfriend? FYI - she does have a boyfriend and he’s Mexican, and she wants to go the US but he can’t go and she doesn’t want to leave him.  She said the people in the US were so beautiful and I said that I thought there were plenty of handsome people in Mexico as I’ve had more than my fair share of love at first sight moments.  One day I made the men in my office bust out laughing when I said that we just passed the most beautiful man I had ever seen walking on a dirt road, but I’m telling you, it was true. 

It's really nice to get to know so many people and to have friendly conversations on the street, but it's the first time in my life that I've been the person who stands out in my community, and it's an interesting thing to be the one who's different.  It's an experience that we should all try to have at least once in our lives because it's easy to be blind to things we've never experienced (and seeing how people approach you as someone who's different really makes you think about how you want to approach others when the situation is reversed).    

City views in my region. 

County views in my region. 

In the US, I lived in the same neighborhood and took the same bus with the same people everyday, yet we never spoke to each other.  I can tell you all about their accessories and if they were prone to be early or late, but nothing about their personal lives or their names.  These days I can tell you all kinds of personal things about not only my neighbors but pretty much everyone I encounter.  And they can probably tell you quite a few things about me from their powers of observation and direct questions on the street.  As much as I like to think I blend in, there is no anonymity here.  When I meet someone new they almost always tell me “Oh yeah, I’ve seen you around town” so I’m just waiting for someone to ask me why I’ve never purchased toilet paper at the local grocery store.  But then again, maybe they already know that I bought a year’s supply at Costco. 

Go Take a Hike

I recently went on a hike, on the only trail I’ve found in town that is accessible without a car.  I love hiking and have been viewing the trail to the cross at the top of the hill for months now.  My host family gave me several warnings about how hot and slippery the trail could be, so I was surprised that it only took 20 minutes from my front door to the top (i.e. I could have climbed that hill a long, long time ago).  The local municipality recently completed trail improvements, including new stairs and signage, and more improvements are on the way so more people can enjoy the spectacular views and contemplative benches located at the midway point.  

View of old volcanoes surrounding town. 

The sprawling metropolis that is my home. 

I love the cemeteries in Mexico. The're a loving testament to the departed and a form of art. 

I was happy to encounter a few other people on the trail, and to see some wildlife, including colorful birds and free-range horses that I bravely passed without incident.  I was not super happy to see all of the plastic bottles, chip bags and other assorted pieces of trash along the trail.  Things are generally pretty clean in my town, but I do sometimes see people throw trash out of their car windows on the highway.  The other day I was riding the bus back from the city and saw a gentleman get off at a stop to throw his trash on the ground and then climb back on.  I could say that there aren’t enough trash cans around (and really there aren’t), but in this case, there was a trash can less than 15 feet away.

 Bird on a tree. 

View east from the top of the mountain. 

Cross at the top. 

View of the cross at the top of the mountain from the road. 

Litter can be a problem on the trails here, especially during Semana Santa when tons of people walk through the region on their way to see la Virgen del Rosario de Talpa.  Known for giving life to hundreds of miracles, people come from near and far to visit her and offer praise or ask for help.  Approximately 3 million people walk some or all of the 70+ mile Ruta del Peregrino every year, with the majority passing through in March and April.  This weekend, pilgrim season officially kicked-off as I saw lots of people with walking sticks hiking through our local streets (sleeping both in hotels and in the local park), and loads of tour buses carrying pilgrims a little closer to their final destination.  Word on the street is that they were headed to see la Virgen in celebration of el Día de la Candelaria (which is also the day when you have to bring tamales for everyone to eat if your Three Kings Day slice of the rosca de reyes contained the figure of the Niños Dios back in January; sadly, no tamales arrived in our office today). 

 Religious art along the hill trail in town. 

 Inside of a small brick room halfway up the hill.  

 I couldn't help but think of sorority symbols, but that's definitely not what this is about. 

Cool art. 

 I love that the sunlight was shining on her. 

This is clearly a hobbit window in Mexico. 

La Ruta del Peregrino includes various viewpoints to enjoy the beauty of the mountains and valleys, along with shelters, rest sites, sculptures and monuments designed by both local and international artists.  I'm part of a committee working to introduce an enhanced element of sustainability to this annual event to help reduce litter and increase the environmental consciousness of participants.  I wasn't here for last year's main event, but from what I've heard, it's going to be pretty exciting (and there's gonna be a lot of trash) starting in March. 

This monument has two "arms" that extend to these triangles, which represent two hands coming together (Ruta del Peregrino).

Interior view of the light and sky (Ruta del Peregrino).

 View from the other side of the monument (Ruta del Peregrino). 

There’s a Belgian gentleman who lives near my town who has made it his personal mission to reduce the amount of litter here.  He promotes a message about the importance of a) cleaning your recyclables so they don’t attract flies and other critters and b) using see-through trash bags so that it’s easy for people to see which bag contains what.  He's made good headway on his work but it takes a non-stop, sustained effort, with critical community buy-in, to create a cultural shift.  Our office has partnered with him on photo exhibits to educate the community about both what environmental treasures we have here and what threats we face from excessive garbage and littering.  I’m also working with him on various environmental education efforts and have enjoyed the many fresh-baked croissants he always carries with him.  I think we can all agree that warm croissants are a good way to get people to join your cause.  

Beautiful view from halfway up the hill. 

 Stairs at the start of the trail. 

Stairs leading to the cross. 

 Trail signage. 

View into town.

 View into a secret garden from the trail. There are all kinds of things we can't see in the places and people around us without taking a different perspective.  

I haven't figured out what my signature food should be to help incentivize people to work with me, but I can promise you that I'll give you tasty food if you come to visit.  Chris, an old coworker from the US, recently visited me and I took him on the same hike to see the view above town.  It was really great to show off my pueblo and to get to know Chris, really for the first time.  We had a few meetings together in the US, but he was my first non-Peace Corps visitor here in Mexico and is now a bonafide friend (and not just because he bought me food ;).

He's doing a great job promoting tourism in Mexico by sharing his experiences with people back in the states, and I will reiterate that this is the year for you to come visit Mexico and get your own personal tour guide who can help you navigate this unfamiliar land (i.e. pleeeeeeeeeease come visit me).  Chris brought me a lovely card that was signed by many of my old coworkers and featured a view of downtown Seattle from my old neighborhood.  That view, and our talks about the best hiking and camping spots in Washington, did make me long for a trip up north.  Then again, I think it's cold now that we only have highs in the 70s so maybe I should just look for some more hikes here in the warmth of Mexico. 

 With Chris, who bought me delicious meals and let me show off my town.